Bexhill keen to open league account

Simon Newstead

Bexhill Cricket Club is keen to record its first victory of the Sussex Premier League quickly.

Bexhill and Ansty are the only teams in the division to have lost both of their matches so far, and Bexhill skipper Johnathan Haffenden is eager to get up and running as soon as possible.

Tim Hambridge at the crease for Bexhill against Roffey.

“We’ve got off to worse starts in a season, but we need to get the first win on the board and just got that feeling back again I think,” said Haffenden. “Like I’ve said before, winning is a bit of a habit and so is losing, so we do want to get out of that.”

Bexhill will head to Brighton & Hove tomorrow (Saturday) and Haffenden says the first objective is to deliver a strong performance.

“We’ve got to look to have a good performance first of all,” he continued. “And if we perform to how we can, we’ll be looking to win.

“We need to play some good cricket and be solid from ball one. We’ve been sloppy at the moment and sloppy is costing us big time. Good cricket will create positive results.”

Brighton are one of six clubs in the division to have won one and lost one so far, and the strength of their side hinges largely on how many, if any, of their three Sussex players - Matt Machan, Phil Salt and Luke Wells - are on display.

“All the sides this year are decent,” Haffenden went on. “But it doesn’t matter who we’re playing against, we’ll fancy our chances at the start of the day. We bat to 11, we’ve got bowling options; we just need to make sure we perform.”

Haffenden admits the early season performances haven’t been up to scratch, but believes there were positives to take from last weekend’s four-wicket loss at home to Roffey.

“It’s not the standard we want to be setting that’s for sure and we need to make sure we don’t carry that standard on,” said Haffenden.

“But there were positives from Saturday. Jake (Lewis) and Ethan (Guest) were brilliant with the bat, and Nick (Peters) and Bees (Josh Beeslee) were fantastic with the ball.”

Bradley Payne is likely to return in place of the unavailable Tim Hambridge for tomorrow’s game.

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